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Sign a petition for the release of political prisoners

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Human Rights Watch is urging you to sign a petition calling for the release of more than 2,100 political prisoners in Burma. They include members of the political opposition, human rights defenders, labour activists, artists, journalists, internet bloggers, as well as Buddhist monks and nuns. Currently, there are 43 prisons holding political activists and over 50 labour camps where prisoners are forced into hard labour. One of the leading political prisoners is Zarganar, a famous comedian jailed for 34 years for criticising the junta's slow response to Cyclone Nargis in 2008.

Last June, Human Rights Watch worked with creative agency JWT and launched "Behind Bars in Burma" in New York's Grand Central terminal, a one-day interactive art installation calling for the release of political prisoners: "The interactive installation represents a miniature Burmese prison complex, and as visitors approach, it turns out the cell bars are actually ballpoint pens. Visitors remove the pens to sign a petition calling on Burma's leaders to release the country's political prisoners." (This year, JWT has been honoured with six prestigious international advertising awards for this art installation campaign.) The online version of this petition is ongoing.

Recently, on 16 May, Burmese President Thein Sein declaired an "amnesty" to all convicted prisoners, that commutes death sentences to life imprisonment and reduces prison terms by one year. The amnesty decision came shortly after the UN secretary-general's Burma envoy, Vijay Nambiar, visited Burma from 11-13 May, stressing that political prisoners must be released. But the one-year reduction is an insult to political prisoners like Zarganar, sentenced to decades in prison. Out of 15,000 prisoners released for having less than one year to serve, only 47 are political prisoners. Some prison terms are in excess of 100 years.

"The government's gesture will be welcomed by a great many prisoners in Burma, but for the 2,100 political prisoners unjustly serving sentences of up to 65 years, the one-year reduction is a sick joke," said Human Rights Watch. "This is a pathetic response to international calls for the immediate release of all political prisoners."

Last week, the U.S. Campaign for Burma reports, seven female political prisoners started a hunger strike to protest against their unlawful detention and deplorable prison conditions. Dozens have joined the protest since then, with more expected to do so as well.

Restrictions on the rights to freedom of expression and assembly persist, amid the government's failure to contend with the range of rights-abusing laws that have been long used to criminalize free speech and prosecute dissidents.As part of the military's "clearance operations" in northern Rakhine State, where thousands of Rohingya Muslims face rampant and systemic human rights violations, the authorities denied independent journalists access to the region since early October.

An officer of the Myanmar army recently filed a criminal complaint against two journalists for allegedly sowing disunity among the military. Even though mediation by the Press Council caused the military to withdraw the case, this incident demonstrates how the military continues to throw its weight to get back at what it perceives as negative publicity.

The Broadcasting Law, approved in August, enabled private companies to enter the broadcast market for the first time. However, it maintains presidential control over the broadcasting sector, and the Broadcasting Council it established is susceptible to political interference.

The report surveys the rocky landscape for media and public discourse since the ruling military junta lifted the curtain on the southeast Asian nation in 2012 after five decades of isolation from the modern world.

As the election looms for later this year, incidents in 2014 and in early 2015 involving the press raises serious questions on the genuineness of media freedom in Burma. The situation is alarming as the state seems to have heaped all the faults and fines on the media in the past year, which has seen a media worker being killed in October on the pretext of national security. International assistance has poured into the country to develop the media aimed at lifting and sustaining the state of media freedom. However, a viable press freedom environment seems unlikely to materialise in Burma before the end of this administration.

There is some skepticism about how much influence Burma's youth movement can assert in terms of political change. Still, activists have benefited from greater access to the Internet, which has brought a new side to the online community after decades of heavy censorship

Burma is at a crossroads. The period of transition since 2010 has opened up the space for freedom of expression to an extent unpredicted by even the most optimistic in the country. Yet this space is highly contingent on a number of volatile factors.

The media landscape in Burma is more open than ever, as President Thein Sein releases imprisoned journalists and abolishes the former censorship regime. But many threats and obstacles to truly unfettered reporting remain, including restrictive laws held over from the previous military regime. The wider government’s commitment to a more open reporting environment is in doubt.

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